Janet Jackson: Discipline
Monday, 25 Feb 2008 13:07
Janet's back and in the mood for punishment on her tenth studio album.
Mercury Records, out now.
In a nutshell…
Poppy. Modern. Formulaic.
What's it all about?
Janet Jackson returns to the studio for her tenth album. It features collaborations with guest producers such as her fiance Jermaine Dupri and Ne-Yo. A bumper album featuring 23 tracks, Discipline mixes a range of styles more than 25 years after the singer released her debut album.
Who's it by?
Janet Jackson was destined for great things when she was born as the youngest of nine children in the prodigious Jackson family.
She released two albums in the early 1980s before hitting the big time with her breakthrough album Control, featuring What Have You Done for Me Lately?, and followed by 1989's Rhythm Nation.
Five Grammy Awards, an Oscar nomination and a "wardrobe malfunction" later and Janet is almost as much a feature on movie screens as on Billboard rankings.
Her most recent film, the third in her career, is called Why Did I Get Married? - perhaps ironic as she recently agreed to marry her boyfriend, producer Jermaine Dupri.
As an example...
"Tie me to something/Take off all my clothes/Daddy I want you to take your time." - Discipline
Likelihood of a trip to the Grammys
Very possible. With top producers working on Discipline, and a sense that this is something of a comeback album for Janet, there may be a nomination or two coming her way.
What the others say
"Singing about sex isn't necessarily sexy. For Jackson, the failure to recognize the difference has been costly." - Chicago Tribune
"Discipline too often serves as a sad, fatigued reminder that this is Janet Jackson's tenth album, rather than at triumphant comeback effort." - IGN
So is it any good?
Discipline doesn't seem very disciplined, as there seems to be a wide range of influences that makes the uniformity of the album suffer.
The main recurring theme is sex: "Daddy I disobeyed you... I need some discipline tonight... I've been very bad".
Slightly creepy lyrics aside, there are flashes of brilliance, but it seems as if Discipline tries to include sweet ballads, dance beats and robotic cyber sounds - and the combination isn't pretty.
The album starts off with a weird computerised talk intro, where Janet chats to a robot called Kyoko. There follows another seven such interludes (all listed as tracks) which fail to make much sense and detract from the rest of the album.
After the wobbly start of Janet and Kyoko's conversation, Discipline features some excellent dance tunes. Some of these - dare I say it - are reminiscent of some of Kylie's latest X album.
Janet then changes gears with Can't B Good and it's almost like it's the Janet of old. Along with Never Letchu Go, it's the voice and melodies of Janet at her very best.
She cranks it up a notch again with The 1, featuring Missy Elliott, but even that doesn't elevate the album as the ballads do.
All in all, Discipline is almost about Janet exploring all these different styles - musically when you listen to the beats and sexually when you listen to the lyrics - and the result is that you have 23 tracks, eight of them interludes that you want to skip over and a select few that you want to listen to again.
Janet has always sold loads of albums, regardless of what the critics seemed to say, but the conclusion on Discipline is that the singer was right: Janet, you have been naughty.
5/10
Karen Moller
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